= is not always defined as equality is bad
Zeugswetter Andreas <andreas.zeugswetter@telecom.at>
From: Zeugswetter Andreas DBT <Andreas.Zeugswetter@telecom.at>
To: "'pgsql-hackers@hub.org'" <pgsql-hackers@hub.org>
Date: 1998-01-12T08:12:34Z
Lists: pgsql-hackers
Vadim wrote: > but this will be "known bug": this breaks OO-nature of Postgres, because of > operators can be overrided and '=' can mean s o m e t h i n g (not equality). > Example: box data type. For boxes, = means equality of _areas_ and =~ > means that boxes are the same ==> =~ ANY should be used for IN. Ok, here I think there should be a restriction to have the = operator always be defined as equality operator. Because in the long run it will be hard to write equality restrictions. a = a1 and b =~ b1 and c +*#~ c1. Also =, >, <, >= and the like will allways be candidates for use by the optimizer (boolean math to simplify restriction or to make an existing index usable could be used). I vote for: = must always be defined as equality in user defined types. (if such comparison is not possible for a special type the = should not be defined for it) I therefore also suggest changing the box ops =~ to = and the area = to some other sign. Andreas